1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to container control and, in particular, to controlling environmental conditions in a container.
2. Description of the Related Art
Presently, many different products and goods are transported around local areas, countrywide, and worldwide in order to deliver the products and goods to various locations, e.g. stores, shops, companies, etc.
Typically, products and goods are transported in containers, either on land vehicles, such as trucks or lorries, or by sea vehicles, such as ships. There are a vast and substantial range of products and goods that may be transported in this manner, ranging from fresh products, such as food produce, to electrical and mechanical goods. Each of the products and goods will require different environmental conditions in order to keep the products and goods in good condition and so many containers include one or more of environmental systems, such as cooling systems, heating systems, humidity systems, filter systems, and so on.
Containers are also typically used as and when available and so may be used to transport a wide range of products and goods. Thus, the containers environmental systems will typically be set, erring on the side of caution, to maintain the environment in the container closer to an extreme which is inefficient, may damage some products or goods transported in the container, can waste energy and therefore be more expensive to operate. For example, the most frequent type of environmental system in a container is a cooling system and so the container may be kept at a low temperature, erring on the side of caution, which often will result in unnecessary cooling, or even not enough cooling, which is inefficient, costly to run and may damage products or goods being transported in the container.
Also, a single container may be transporting two or more products or goods and so by arbitrarily setting the environmental systems in the container may mean one product or goods being damaged as the environmental systems setting may not be suitable for all of the two or more products or goods sharing the same container.
Accordingly, current transportation means are inefficient, costly and may damage products or goods being transported in containers. As such, the present invention seeks to address, at least in part, any or all of the above described problems, drawbacks and disadvantages described above.